Six down: Another city unanimously votes to block NDAA detention provisions

Six down: Another city unanimously votes to block NDAA detention provisions

Rutland, MA – PANDA Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Resistance is pleased to announce its latest civil rights victory. Rutland, MA has passed the Rutland Restoring Constitutional Governance Resolution (RCGR) by a unanimous margin. This resolution provides inhabitants of Rutland their first legal defense against indefinite detentions since passage of the 2012 NDAA.

The overwhelming support for Rutland RCGR once again tells elected officials throughout Worcester County and all of Massachusetts that the citizens here in the cradle of liberty will never give up their cherished civil rights.

Many Massachusetts towns, including Rutland, make policy via Town Meetings whereby everyday citizens vote on issues that come up for debate. Each issue requires a number of signatures to qualify for the meeting agenda; once on the agenda, the townspeople decide on the issue directly.

Rutland residents voted unanimously in favor of the PANDA-sponsored resolution. Local resident Al Hopfmann successfully presented the case for a Yes vote.

Al said “It was truly gratifying to see the voters of Rutland support the sanctity of the American judicial system and the Constitution. The traditional protection of individual liberty in our nation can only be preserved when citizens speak up in opposition to the overreach of government.”

About PANDA and the NDAA

The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011. The 2012 NDAA declared the United States is now a battlefield in the war on terror and Sections 1021 & 1022 authorized the indefinite detention, without charge or trial, of any person, including American citizens, accused by the President of undefined “support” of terrorist activity or commission of a ‘belligerent act.” This vagueness violates multiple provisions of the US Constitution, in addition to the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th amendments.

People Against the NDAA (PANDA) is a national, nonpartisan organization founded in January 2012. PANDA is committed to reversing the NDAA’s unconstitutional sections by passing civil rights protections at the state and local levels which reassert and uphold the Bill of Rights as the highest law of the land. PANDA originated in Bowling Green, OH, has since decentralized, and now provides activist support for thousands of people across the country taking on the detention provisions of the 2012 NDAA.

At number seven, Rutland’s resolution represents a clear movement emerging. The Resolution states:
“…it is unconstitutional, and therefore unlawful for any person to:

a. arrest or capture any person in Rutland, or citizen of Rutland, within the United States, with the intent of “detention under the law of war,” or

b. actually subject a person in Rutland, to “disposition under the law of war,” or

c. subject any person to targeted killing in Rutland, or citizen of Rutland, within the United States;…”

Unlike the Liberty Preservation Acts introduced and/or passed in several states, including Virginia and California, the Restoring Constitutional Governance Act/Resolution prohibits any person, local, state, federal, or international, from utilizing the powers of the “law of war” under the 2012 NDAA or any similar law or authority, in any city, county, or state.

Six cities, and one county have already taken time to ban the provisions. Is yours next?

P.S. Are you in Massachusetts or New York? The PANDA Take Back Concert Tour is coming back to Albany, NY this weekend! Joining us will be hip-hop legend Immortal Technique, rock band Saving Abel, several speakers, and more artists. Tickets are on sale now!